


Only Seven Stories

by coloredink



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-03
Updated: 2007-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night Duck left, Fakir went to the library.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Seven Stories

"You don't have to go, you know," Fakir told her.

"Quack," she said. The expression on her face--inasmuch as she had an expression at all, as ducks' faces have a limited range of movement--reminded him of the time they went underground to look for Mytho, and Duck asked him to hold her pendant for her.

"You've a home here all winter, if you want it," he reminded her.

"Quack," she replied.

"Of course, if you must," and here she nodded, "then I'll be here when you get back."

"Quack," she agreed, and winged away.

\---

The night Duck left, Fakir went to the library.

He read about ducks. Species and types of ducks, their anatomy, their habits, their coloration. He read jokes about ducks (none of which were very funny, and most of them relied on terrible puns), stories with ducks in them (of which the range was wide and varied), and even the etymology of the word "duck" (which was actually quite interesting).

And then, with a growing sense of bottomless dread, Fakir read about migration: its patterns, paths, history, and the thousand perils, large and small, to which a small, defenseless duck could fall prey. Hawks, disease, exhaustion, starvation, foul weather--

Fakir left the book open on the table behind him, and the librarian who found it after would sigh over the cracked spine and creased pages.

 _And she narrowly avoided the falcon's claws_ , Fakir wrote, but it was wrong, it was empty. This wasn't a _story_ , this thing without a head or a tail, without climax or resolution. It was just wishful thinking.

He crumpled the sheet of paper, then thought better of it. It was not as if he could afford to waste paper.

\---

The snows came, but Fakir did not notice because he was in the library. When he opened the door to a soft, whispering world, he blinked and adjusted his scarf and hat for the long walk home. It was still and quiet, save for the faint crunch of his footsteps. The trees seemed very black against the pale sky.

The door to his cabin was stiff and cold even to his gloved fingers, and the hinges cracked when he pulled. The inside of the cabin was, if possible, even colder than outside, and dark.

"Well, Duck," Fakir said, his breath coming in puffs of white before him. "I hope it's warm, wherever you are." And he knelt to start the fire.

 _It was indeed warm where Duck was_ , he wrote that night, _and gentle, and she was in the company of other ducks._ He stopped. This was not a story, either.

\---

"Was it ever winter before, in this town?" Autor mused, when next they met in town. (At the library, unsurprisingly. Fakir told himself that it was coincidence, and that he had not been wondering how another voice sounded.)

"I don't know that it has," Autor continued. "I think the weather was not something Drosselmeyer considered unless it was useful to him, and so far winter was not useful to him. This must be your work, then," he concluded.

"Mine?" Fakir said, startled out of his reverie; he had been brooding over whether or not Duck was eating well, if at all.

"Well, isn't it?" Autor said, equally surprised.

"I hadn't given it much thought," Fakir admitted, and he could have kicked himself. If he could control the climes, why, he could have prevented the necessity of Duck's departure at all--

The notion dissipated as soon as Fakir arrived home to his blank notepad. There was a natural order to things: that, too, was the responsibility of the writer.

\---

 _It was time,_ Fakir wrote. _She could sense it in the air, the way the light waxed and waned. It was time to return to her rightful place in a cabin at the edge of Kinkan Town, where there waited_

Fakir stopped. This was stupid.

\---

At last, however, one day not long after the thaw, Fakir woke to sunshine through his window and the gladsome sound of quacking. Honking Vs still passed overhead, but all he cared for was the familiar little figure in the lake, shaking water off her feathers.

Fakir decided now was as good a time as any, with the return of the sun, to resume writing outside. The spring breeze proved too much for his paper, however, and he abandoned it for conversation with his favorite waterfowl instead.

"Was it pleasant?" he inquired.

"Quack," Duck replied, sticking her beak in the water.

"I'm sure the weather was very fine," Fakir suggested.

"Quack," Duck agreed, looking up at the sun.

"It was a little quiet, without you here," Fakir admitted. "But I managed to occupy myself, what with one thing and another."

Duck did not reply, as her front end was underwater. Fakir was content just to watch her; there was something about her that always set him at ease.

"I don't suppose you met any handsome boy ducks," Fakir said, after a while.

Duck popped back up. " _Quack_ ," she said, and really, her face was quite expressive, for a duck.


End file.
